Abstract: The ever-increasing population growth and economic developments have led to a demand for energy. Therefore, this has resulted in a depletion and ever rising prices of petroleum diesel, hence increasing environmental degradation. These complications have motivated this study for the search of an alternative eco-friendly and renewable source of energy such as biodiesel. Biodiesel has been found to be a potential alternative fuel for diesel. It has the potential to solve the energ...
Abstract: Water scarcity is one of the main challenges in sustainable development particularly in developing countries. The use of wastewater effluent for irrigation of crops is common in most water-stressed countries as this alleviates pressure on fresh water supply. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are regarded as hotspots for antibiotic resistance determinants; antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB), antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and mobile genetic elements (e.g. plasmids). These ant...
Abstract: Over the past years the use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) swarms has increased drastically. Multiple cooperative unmanned aerial vehicles have introduced numerous possibilities of performing several tasks, saving time, money and impediments. However, even though they are making life easier unequal responsibility propagation amongst unmanned aerial vehicles in a swarm is the biggest detriment that has resulted in inconsistent battery consumption. Missions have failed as a re...
Abstract: The development of easily recoverable and re-usable catalytic nanostructures exhibiting high performances using simple and cheap procedures for applications in bio-sensing and wastewater treatment technologies is currently a prominent area of research. Noble-metal inclusive magnetic nano-catalysts in particular, have of recent gathered interest owing to their ease of separation from reaction products, environmental benignity and improved activities through synergistic qualitie...
Abstract: Object recognition using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is increasingly becoming more useful. Tremendous success has been achieved on UAV object recognition in clear weather conditions where adequate illumination makes it easier for UAVs to recognize objects in the scene. Unfortunately, for outdoor applications, there is no escape from bad weather moments such as haze, fog, dust, smoke and smog. These weather nuisances occur due to suspended particles in the atmosphere, ultimately...
Abstract: A rank regression based procedure for testing for the existence of publication bias in meta-analysis is proposed. The method is designed to possess the robustness of the Begg rank correlation test for publication bias and the efficiency of Egger’s regression approach. The procedure uses the Jaeckel rank-regression framework along with a rank prediction protocol for estimating the intercept term of Egger-type regression models for a robust and efficient test of publication bias in...
Abstract: Many of the most important problems arising in nonlinear analysis reduce to solv ing inclusions of monotone mappings, split equilibrium, variational inequality or fixed point problems. Analytical methods for finding exact solutions of many non linear equations are rare or unknown. Therefore, methods of approximating the solutions of nonlinear inclusion problems are of interest where solutions are known to exist. In this thesis, we combine Douglas-Rachford and Viscosity methods and ...
Abstract: Kaposi’s sarcoma is a common AIDS-defining cancer that has continued to afflict patients living with HIV-1, especially, individuals who are currently not on HAART or whose HIV-1 status is not known. Even individuals who have had a prior HHV-8 infection and are on HAART are at an increased risk of developing KS whenever drug failure occurs and when one develops drug resistance to the drugs being administered. Like other herpesvirus, KS associated herpesvirus (KSHV), also known as ...
Abstract: Khadi is a traditional fermented alcoholic beverage popular in Botswana. There is little documented information about the brewing processes, the microorganisms responsible for fermentation as well as the safety despite its popularity in local markets. Such information is vital for production of a standardized beverage with a consistent quality to aid its entrance into the modern commercial markets. This thesis explored the brewing processes, microbiological quality and safety, as i...
Abstract: Some new generalized distributions called the new Gamma Lindley-Log-logistic (GLLLoG) distribution, new Weibull Generalised-G (NWG-G) family of distributions and the Exponentiated Half-Logistic Odd Lindley-G family of distributions are proposed and presented. These distributions contain several distributions such as Half-Logistic, Odd Lindley, Lindley, Log-Logistic, new-Rayleigh generalized-G, new exponential generalized-G, new Rayleigh-G and the new-Weibull-G family of distributio...
Abstract: The intention in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is to group sensed raw facts from geographical area under monitoring. Yet, sensor nodes sometimes report tempered (falsified) information resulting from malicious nodes. Hence, various studies recommend pre-identification of malicious node as essential for reliable and healthy networks. Different techniques have been proposed to deal with bogus sensor nodes in WSNs, ranging from authentication to trust based approaches. In this ...
Abstract: Dung beetles are coprophagous insects belonging to the families Scarabaeidae and Geotrupidae. They are a very important insects’ group, acting as significant ecosystem engineers through dung burial, decomposition, nutrient cycling, bioturbation and seed dispersal in natural and human managed systems. Despite these benefits, most essential ecosystem services are not economically quantified and as such, their roles as natural capital in natural and human managed systems have la...
Abstract: Substance abuse in Botswana is a growing problem with a variety of drugs being abused including cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and alcohol among others. At the front line of attempting to address the drug abuse problem is the Botswana Substance Abuse and Support Network (BoSASNet) which operates outpatient rehabilitation and support ser vices that constitute its clinical programme. Due to the criminalisation and stigma associated with drug use and dealing in drugs, the...
Abstract: Antibiotic resistance has been a growing worldwide public health issue. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that the search for new antibiotics is slow, while antibiotic resistance is growing. WHO has also declared that antibiotic resistance is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity in the 21st century. Therefore, this review discusses the potential of metal-based drugs as antibacterial agents from the period of the early 2000s to date. The review...
Abstract: This paper presents a semi supervised clustering technique with incremental and decremented affinity propagation (ID-AP) that structures labeled exemplars into the AP algorithm and a new method for actively selecting informative constraints to make available of improved clustering performance. The clustering and active learning methods are both scalable to large data sets, and can hold very high dimensional data. In this paper, the active learning challenges are examined to choose ...